1e72b68ab3
For a couple of years, Tor documentation has made the term hidden service obsolete, in favor of onion service. This PR updates all the references in the code base.
7.4 KiB
Bitcoin Core file system
Contents
Data directory location
The data directory is the default location where the Bitcoin Core files are stored.
- The default data directory paths for supported platforms are:
| Platform | Data directory path |
|---|---|
| Linux | $HOME/.bitcoin/ |
| macOS | $HOME/Library/Application Support/Bitcoin/ |
| Windows | %APPDATA%\Bitcoin\ [1] |
-
The non-default data directory path can be specified by
-datadiroption. -
All content of the data directory, except for
bitcoin.conffile, is chain-specific. This means the actual data directory paths for non-mainnet cases differ:
| Chain option | Data directory path |
|---|---|
| no option (mainnet) | path_to_datadir/ |
-testnet |
path_to_datadir/testnet3/ |
-regtest |
path_to_datadir/regtest/ |
Data directory layout
| Subdirectory | File(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|
blocks/ |
Blocks directory; can be specified by -blocksdir option (except for blocks/index/) |
|
blocks/index/ |
LevelDB database | Block index; -blocksdir option does not affect this path |
blocks/ |
blkNNNNN.dat[2] |
Actual Bitcoin blocks (in network format, dumped in raw on disk, 128 MiB per file) |
blocks/ |
revNNNNN.dat[2] |
Block undo data (custom format) |
chainstate/ |
LevelDB database | Blockchain state (a compact representation of all currently unspent transaction outputs and some metadata about the transactions they are from) |
indexes/txindex/ |
LevelDB database | Transaction index; optional, used if -txindex=1 |
indexes/blockfilter/basic/db/ |
LevelDB database | Blockfilter index LevelDB database for the basic filtertype; optional, used if -blockfilterindex=basic |
indexes/blockfilter/basic/ |
fltrNNNNN.dat[2] |
Blockfilter index filters for the basic filtertype; optional, used if -blockfilterindex=basic |
wallets/ |
Contains wallets; can be specified by -walletdir option; if wallets/ subdirectory does not exist, a wallet resides in the data directory |
|
./ |
banlist.dat |
Stores the IPs/subnets of banned nodes |
./ |
bitcoin.conf |
User-defined configuration settings for bitcoind or bitcoin-qt. File is not written to by the software and must be created manually. Path can be specified by -conf option |
./ |
bitcoind.pid |
Stores the process ID (PID) of bitcoind or bitcoin-qt while running; created at start and deleted on shutdown; can be specified by -pid option |
./ |
debug.log |
Contains debug information and general logging generated by bitcoind or bitcoin-qt; can be specified by -debuglogfile option |
./ |
fee_estimates.dat |
Stores statistics used to estimate minimum transaction fees and priorities required for confirmation |
./ |
guisettings.ini.bak |
Backup of former GUI settings after -resetguisettings option is used |
./ |
mempool.dat |
Dump of the mempool's transactions |
./ |
onion_private_key |
Cached Tor onion service private key for -listenonion option |
./ |
peers.dat |
Peer IP address database (custom format) |
./ |
settings.json |
Read-write settings set through GUI or RPC interfaces, augmenting manual settings from bitcoin.conf. File is created automatically if read-write settings storage is not disabled with -nosettings option. Path can be specified with -settings option |
./ |
.cookie |
Session RPC authentication cookie; if used, created at start and deleted on shutdown; can be specified by -rpccookiefile option |
./ |
.lock |
Data directory lock file |
Multi-wallet environment
Wallets are Berkeley DB (BDB) databases:
| Subdirectory | File(s) | Description |
|---|---|---|
database/ |
BDB logging files | Part of BDB environment; created at start and deleted on shutdown; a user must keep it as safe as personal wallet wallet.dat |
./ |
db.log |
BDB error file |
./ |
wallet.dat |
Personal wallet (BDB) with keys and transactions |
./ |
.walletlock |
Wallet lock file |
-
Each user-defined wallet named "wallet_name" resides in
wallets/wallet_name/subdirectory. -
The default (unnamed) wallet resides in
wallets/subdirectory; if the latter does not exist, the wallet resides in the data directory. -
A wallet database path can be specified by
-walletoption. -
wallet.datfiles must not be shared across different node instances, as that can result in key-reuse and double-spends due the lack of synchronization between instances. -
Any copy or backup of the wallet should be done through a
backupwalletcall in order to update and lock the wallet, preventing any file corruption caused by updates during the copy.
GUI settings
bitcoin-qt uses QSettings class; this implies platform-specific locations where application settings are stored.
Legacy subdirectories and files
These subdirectories and files are no longer used by the Bitcoin Core:
| Path | Description | Repository notes |
|---|---|---|
blktree/ |
Blockchain index; replaced by blocks/index/ in 0.8.0 |
PR #2231, 8fdc94cc |
coins/ |
Unspent transaction output database; replaced by chainstate/ in 0.8.0 |
PR #2231, 8fdc94cc |
blkindex.dat |
Blockchain index BDB database; replaced by {chainstate/, blocks/index/, blocks/revNNNNN.dat[2]} in 0.8.0 |
PR #1677 |
blk000?.dat |
Block data (custom format, 2 GiB per file); replaced by blocks/blkNNNNN.dat[2] in 0.8.0 |
PR #1677 |
addr.dat |
Peer IP address BDB database; replaced by peers.dat in 0.7.0 |
PR #1198, 928d3a01 |
Notes
1. The / (slash, U+002F) is used as the platform-independent path component separator in this paper.
2. NNNNN matches [0-9]{5} regex.